Veep (2019)

 

Veep (2017)

 

Veep (2016)

 

Veep (2015)

 

Veep (2014)

 

Veep (2013)

 

Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle (Bloomsbury 2016)

 

One of the unexpected ways in which my upbringing as the son of Communists had helped prepare me for the challenges of celebrity, an advantage that my fellow comedians didn’t have, was in the matter of staying true to yourself. The idea of the traitor, the sell-out, the apostate was central to Joe and Molly’s state of mind. Even when I was quite small we would be out shopping in town and  my mother or father would gesticulate towards some harmless-looking individual and say in a whisper, ‘See him over there trying on gloves, he left the Party over Hungary in 1956 and now he’s . . .’ Here they’d pause before revealing the full horror. ‘A Labour councillor!’ Or, ‘Don’t look, but that woman by the bacon counter, she used to be in CND but now she’s . . . joined the Air Force!’ At first I couldn’t see anything different about the people my parents pointed out but over time it did seem to me that they possessed a certain haunted quality, an air of sadness, and though their mood probably wasn’t helped by being whispered about in shops by a red-haired woman and a man in a trilby hat accompanied by a silent watchful boy I sensed that the main critical voice was within their heads, that they themselves were aware on some level of the abandonment of their younger more idealistic self and it corroded them from the inside.

I did not want to end up like that. The trick it  seemed to me was to not be blind to the many faults of the left while at the same time to try and stay true to those core values of workers’ rights, social justice and equality.

Me doing fund-raising benefits for left-wing organisations was an attempt to stay connected with those ideals.

As a left-wing entertainer it was accepted that you would inevitably perform unpaid at concerts in aid of various radical causes – doing benefits had become a sort of national service for alternative comedians. There was very little pleasure in appearing at them though. I did a bit about benefit concerts in my act: how you told a joke, then there was a pause while the audience vetted the joke for its political content, possible sexism, any hints of neo-colonialism, adherence to the theory of dialectical and historical materialism, and only once it was cleared would they laugh – it was like doing your material over a faulty phone line.

I went up to Sheffield to appear in a show at the Crucible Theatre in support of Nicaragua’s revolutionary, anti-American, pro-moustache Sandinista government. Following the show the cast and their friends were introduced to the guest of honour – David Blunkett the radical left-wing leader of Sheffield City Council. After the line-up Linda said, ‘I don’t like that man, there’s something funny about his eyes.'

The Death of Stalin (2017)

 

The Death of Stalin (2017)

 

The Left Left Behind by Terry Bisson (PM Press 2009)

 

“No TV news!” said Cap. “How are we going to figure out what is going on?”

“Alternative radio!” said Gotha. “Pacifica is still on!” She spun the dial again:

“…without the heads of state. The new Secretary General of the United Nations, Vlad, has declared a new World Government. And now for ten hours of uninterrupted harmonica music played by chimpanzees …”

“World Government,” said Gotha. “That’s got to be a good thing!”

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Carry On Columbus

These coronavirus jokes are just going to run and run.

PS - Mr. Griffiths is that rarest of breeds: he once voted for the SPGB.

It's Not a Runner Bean...: Confessions of a Slightly Successful Comedian by Mark Steel (The Do-Not Press 1996)

Geordie

'This is Mark, he's a comedian,' the man who'd set up the comedy night in Newcastle told his four mates. They looked like the four people you would choose from thousands if you wanted extras for a film set in a Newcastle pub.

'Ar, so yoor the comedian, well ah hoop yoor funna mairt,' they chipped in. We all went to the bar and ordered a round of drinks, and the stockiest among them decided to tell me a joke.

Ay, what do yer chuck a Paki when he's drooning? His wife and kids.' The others laughed.

What to do? Walk away and they'd have just thought I was weird, whereas anything that might have ended in violence was hardly an option.

The tough part of these situations is that when bigotry hides behind a joke, it's so much trickier to deal with. Launching into a tirade about racism would have only made them think, 'What a stuck-up, miserable bastard’. 'All right, it's only a joke,' they'd have said. And gone off muttering, 'He's not much of a comedian.' Besides it was quite possible that he wasn't a serious racist but had never come across the idea that jokes like that are just appalling.

The one thing I decided in the two seconds after he'd finished was that I'd say something. 'What's the matter?' he said, perturbed that I wasn't laughing. 'Doon't yer get it?’

’Na.he's a comadian,' said his mate. 'He's hewered it before.'

There's probably one time in most people's lives when, instead of thinking of the perfect answer the day after the event, it comes out at the time. I don’t remember thinking it but from somewhere came, 'Yeah, I have heard it before. But I heard the funnier version. What do you chuck a Geordie when he's drowning?'

There was another silence and for a moment I was expecting to end up lying on the floor, clutching my ribs, with blood pouring from my nose, mumbling, 'I was only making a point.'

But at the end of this tense three seconds he burst out laughing and said, 'Ya can see wha he's a comadian.'

With any luck he'll now be the Equal Opportunities Officer for the Anglo-Asian Community Relations Department on Tyneside Council.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Has the luck of the Irish run out?

The Death of Stalin

I need to see this NOW. I cannot wait until October.

From the people who brought us The Thick of It and The Veep. It's fitting that it is a Liberal Democrat sticking the boot into Uncle Joe:

The Hamilton Hacker

Nice wee bit of sly humour from the April 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Two Pints by Roddy Doyle (Alfred A. Knopf 2012)

18-5-12

— SEE DONNA SUMMER died?

— Did she?

— Yeah.

— That’s bad. Wha’ was it?

— Cancer.

— Ah well. Cancer of the disco. It gets us all in the end.

— I met the wife durin’ ‘Love To Love You Baby’.

— You asked her up.

— No.

— No?

— I asked another young one an’ she said, Fuck off an’ ask me friend.

— An’ tha’ was the wife.

— Her sister. An’ she told me to fuck off as well. So. Annyway. Here we are.

— Grand. She’d a few good songs, but – Donna.

— ‘MacArthur Park’. That was me favourite.

— A classic. Until Richard fuckin’ Harris took it an’ wrecked it.

— It’s all it takes, isn’t it? Some cunt from Limerick takes a certified disco classic an’ turns it into some sort o’ bogger lament.

— Someone left the cake out in the rain.

— They wouldn’t know wha’ cake was in Limerick. They’d be puttin’ it in their fuckin’ hair.

— An’anyway, they’d’ve robbed the fuckin’ cake long before it started rainin’.

— Is she upset about Donna – the wife?

— Stop. Jesus, man, we were just gettin’ over Whitney. An’ now this.

— Will she go over for the funeral?

— She’s headin’ down to the fuckin’ credit union.

Never gets old . . .

It would also work as a great heckle

OK, I know it's a cheap shot but a funny bit of graffiti, nonetheless.

Snaffled off of Urban 75's 'I'm on ur boardz, wasting ur bandwidthz' thread.